An employee made a complaint about their manager. What do we do first?

Take it seriously, write down what was said, and do not promise confidentiality you cannot deliver. What happens in the first 48 hours shapes everything after it, including how defensible the outcome looks later. Call us before you respond, not after.

Do we have to investigate every complaint?

Not every concern needs a formal investigation, but every concern needs a decision about whether it does — and that decision should be documented. The expensive mistake is treating something informally because it seemed minor, then discovering it was part of a pattern.

Can you handle the conversation itself, or do you just advise?

Both, within limits. We prepare you, we will sit in the room, and we handle work rule and policy matters directly. A formal investigation into a complaint of discrimination or harassment is different: as an outside firm we advise on the process and on who should run it, and that is usually your employment counsel.

Our manager wants to fire someone this week.

Then this week is the time to look at the documentation, not after. Most terminations that become claims were defensible on the facts and undocumented in the file. A short conversation now is considerably cheaper than the alternative.

Employee Relations Support for Growing Companies

Most HR work can wait a day. Employee relations can’t.

Someone makes a complaint about their manager. Two people on a four-person team have stopped speaking. A manager wants to fire someone on Friday and can’t articulate why beyond “it isn’t working.” A resignation letter arrives with a paragraph in it that reads like the start of a claim.

These arrive without warning, they’re rarely simple, and the first response matters more than anything that follows.

Why this is the hardest thing to outsource

It’s also the thing a helpline handles worst.

Employee relations depends on context — who these people are, what happened last quarter, which manager has a pattern, what was said in the room six months ago. A representative reading from a ticket has none of that. They can tell you the general principle. They cannot tell you whether this particular situation is what it appears to be.

That’s the argument for an embedded partner rather than a service desk. We know your managers. We’ve usually met the person. When something arrives, the first question isn’t “what are the facts” — we already have most of them.

Where companies get hurt

Responding before thinking. The first 48 hours after a complaint set the shape of everything after. Promising confidentiality you can’t keep, telling the complainant it’s probably nothing, or mentioning it to the wrong person all create problems that outlast the original issue.

Treating a pattern as an incident. The third complaint about the same manager is a different situation from the first, and it’s only visible if someone is keeping track.

Documentation that appears afterward. Most terminations that turn into claims were defensible on the facts. What sank them was a file containing nothing until the week of the decision, which reads exactly like what it is.

Managers improvising. An untrained supervisor handling a performance conversation badly creates more exposure than the underlying performance problem ever did.

What we do

Intake and triage: what this is, whether it needs a formal process, and what happens in the first 48 hours
Work rule and policy violations, handled directly
Investigation planning: whether a formal investigation is needed, who should run it, and when it belongs with counsel rather than with us
Performance management: documentation that holds up, delivered before it’s needed
Difficult conversations, including sitting in the room when that’s the right call
Termination review, so the decision and the file agree with each other
Conflict resolution between individuals and across teams
Separation agreements coordinated with your counsel
Manager coaching on the specific situation in front of them

Where we stop

We’re not your employment attorney. Some situations need one from the first hour — a complaint alleging discrimination or harassment, anything involving a protected activity, anything already threatened as a claim. We’ll say so immediately and bring them in while it’s still a question rather than a filing.

We do not conduct formal workplace investigations. An outside consulting firm running an investigation is a different proposition from an in-house HR lead doing it, and the findings are harder to protect. What we do is help you decide whether a formal investigation is warranted, make sure the first 48 hours don’t compromise it, and hand it to counsel when that is where it belongs. Work rule and policy matters we handle directly.

What we do is make sure that call happens early, with the facts assembled, rather than three weeks later with a file nobody wants to show anyone.

The problems that arrive at 4pm on a Friday